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Following the Russian-Georgian war of August 2008, the “separation line” between Tbilisi-controlled and Russian-occupied Georgian lands in the Tskhinvali region (South Ossetia) has been constantly moved by Russian border guards, with Georgia losing hundreds of hectares in the process. This policy of slow and yet constant encroaching of Georgian territory has been described as “borderization”.
The Russians and the Ossetian separatists supported by Moscow are not grabbing only land. As the separation line is not physically marked by fences and barbed wire, and is constantly shifting, the Russians are routinely arresting Georgian citizens “for illegally crossing the border”; it is estimated that at least 1500 had been detained since the 2008 war.
The latest incident in the region occurred on November 6, when Russian soldiers killed Georgian citizen Tamaz Ginturi and kidnapped his friend. It happened just two days before the European Commission to recommend granting Georgia EU-candidate status, and some experts saw the tragedy as another attempt by Moscow to sabotage Tbilisi’s European integration.
Another Russian killing in the Caucasus
According to the testimony of local residents and representative of the anti-occupation movement “Strength in Unity” Lasha Berulava, on November 6, a group of residents from the Kirbali was visiting the nearby Lomisi church; both are situated along the separation line, with Kirbali under Georgian control and Lomisi on the Russian-occupied side. Access to the church had been blocked weeks earlier by the Russians, who said that a Georgian flag had been raised on the building. As soon as Tamaz Ginturi – a former Special Forces officer and veteran of the 2008 Russian-Georgian war in his late 50s – and his friends arrived at the location, Russian soldiers appeared and, according to Berulava, tried to detain several of them, but met resistance.
The Russians opened fire and fatally wounded Tamaz Ginturi, then they detained Levan Dotiashvili; the latter would be released on November the 10th, and he recounted being beaten by his captors.
A relative of Ginturi told journalists that he was killed in his car, with three bullets in the back, as he was driving away from the church. The Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs began an investigation under Articles 109 (premeditated murder) and 143 (illegal deprivation of liberty) of the Criminal Code of Georgia.
The KGB of South Ossetia claimed in a statement that “the border patrol discovered two violators of the state border in a car” and both men were in a state of “alcohol intoxication.”
“During the attempt to detain them, they resisted, posing a threat to the life and health of the border guards. The offenders used an axe. Later, they attempted to drive a car into a border guard and then drive to Georgia”. The KGB claimed that the border guards first fired a “warning shot in the air”.
Georgian President Salome Zourabishvili called the murder of Tamaz Ginturi by the Russian military “a brutal attack on Georgian statehood”.
“I am deeply outraged by the murder of a Georgian citizen during illegal detention by Russian occupation forces”, Zourabishvili wrote on Twitter and called on the international community to “unconditionally condemn the actions of Russia, which grossly and unscrupulously violates all international norms”.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, in turn, said that the incident in Kirbali once again confirmed the difficult security situation on the ground. The murder, he said, speaks of the dire consequences of the occupation, which the civilian population, along with the Georgian authorities, has to face. At the same time, the ruling party often emphasizes that the occupation of Georgian territories is a heavy burden inherited by the Georgian Dream after the rule of Mikheil Saakashvili, who lead Georgia during the 2008 war.
The Georgian opposition dubbed what was happening as a failure of the so-called “pragmatic” and “peaceful” policy of the ruling Georgian Dream, which is trying to avoid irritating Moscow. Opponents of the policy claim that it leads to the continued occupation of Georgian lands and the death of its citizens; they even criticized the Georgian Dream for the wording of its statement regarding the latest incident, as the ruling party used “detained”, not “kidnapped” when it mentioned Dotiashvili.
Ginturi’s killing was also condemned by the EU and the US. Viola von Cramon, a member of the “Friends of Georgia” group in the European Parliament, said that “Russia is killing. She kills in Ukraine, in Syria and, of course, in Georgia. Georgia has 200 years of experience under Russian occupation to know that appeasing a bully never works”.
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said she was “shocked” by such a reaction from the West.
“We are surprised by this position of the EU; they ignored obvious facts and detailed explanations from the Ossetian side that were given. The most shocking thing is that Brussels is categorically trying to shift responsibility for what happened to Russia. These are politicized, one-sided assessments, false... All this indicates a clear bias and engagement of the European Union.”
Russia’s ongoing process of “creeping annexation” of Georgian territory
The village of Kirbali, where a Georgian citizen was killed on November 6, is located 70 kilometers from Tbilisi and in close proximity to the demarcation line. Local residents feel very vulnerable, as in most families there is at least one member who, at one point, was detained by the Russians and/or the separatists.
The word “borderization” entered the political dictionary as the name of the process of arranging the demarcation line in the zone of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict, which the Georgian side calls the administrative border, and the Ossetian side calls the state border.
The Russian border service FSB began establishing barriers between the unrecognized republic of South Ossetia and the territory controlled by official Tbilisi after the Russian-Georgian war in August 2008 (Russia then recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states) and continues to do so to this day. They claim that they are guided by old Soviet maps when establishing the border. Tbilisi calls this process “creeping annexation, or occupation”.
Some of the fences run right through courtyards in Georgian villages in the conflict zone, depriving local residents of housing and access to gardens, pastures, and cemeteries. According to Georgian authorities, there are about ten cases when the border established by the Russians cut off populated areas. But border posts move annually not only through villages: in 2015, a green border stand appeared right on the route of the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline; in 2017, residents of the village of Bershueti discovered that the border cut them off from 10 hectares of arable land. Near the village of Karafila, the border in the field is marked with a firebreak, and every year it moves little by little deeper into Georgian territory.
In 2018, the local population noticed that representatives of the occupying forces were hanging white rags on trees to mark the territory. And in 2022, the Russian military created a new “control point” here. Residents of Kirbali then, as a sign of protest, dismantled the installed “State Border” banner and sold it for scrap.
Tamaz Ginturi was not the first Georgian shot dead by the Russian troops near the separation line. Four others had been killed on the “borders” with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In 2018, the Georgian parliament created the Otkhozoria-Tatunashvili list, named after two of the victims. The document contains the names of persons involved in crimes against Georgian citizens in the occupied territories.
In 2018, two lawsuits were filed against Russia in the Strasbourg court. In the first one, the Georgian government denounced violations of rights, illegal detentions, attacks and murders of Georgian citizens in the occupied regions. The second lawsuit was filed by the parents of the murdered Archil Tatunashvili together with the Empathy Center. They accused Russia of violating five articles of the European Convention: the right to life, the prohibition of torture, the right to liberty and security, the right for private and family life and the right to effective legal protection. In April 2023, the Strasbourg court upheld the claim of Georgia against Russia. Now Russia must pay Georgia more than 129 million euros in compensation, under Article 41 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Concerns about the protection of human rights in occupied Abkhazia and the South Ossetia region were also mentioned in the 27th synthesis report on the conflict in Georgia, published by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe on April 19, 2023. The report covers the period from November 2022 to March 2023. It highlights the lack of progress on key issues related to human rights and the humanitarian situation in conflict-affected regions. The document pays particular attention to restrictions on freedom of movement, as well as problems related to access to education and health care.
According to the document, a Council of Europe delegation visiting Tbilisi on a fact-finding mission in February 2023 was informed that illegal “borderization” activities continued during the reporting period, including the erection of barriers, the installation of video surveillance systems and increased controls around crossing points.
Russia categorically denies all accusations of border shifts and invites Georgia to directly discuss this issue with the authorities of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In April 2018, in an interview with the Russian TV channel Dozhd, the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, stated:
“Reports of a “moving border” are never confirmed in fact. The South Ossetian side has long been unsuccessfully inviting the Georgian authorities to check existing maps and jointly determine where the line between Georgia and South Ossetia lies on the ground. If the authorities in Tbilisi really cared about the border residents, these issues could be easily resolved. So the South Ossetian side has to demarcate the border unilaterally”.
Was Ginturi’s murder an attempt by Russia to sabotage Georgia’s European integration?
Many observers note that the murder incident in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone occurred just two days before the European Commission said that it had decided to grant Georgia EU candidate status. The country did not get the status yet, as it needs the approval of the European Council, which will be convened on December 14-15, but the recommendation is itself a huge step forward. Thus, Ginturi’s killing could be another attempt by Moscow to sabotage the rapprochement between Tbilisi and Brussels.
According to Georgian journalist-blogger Giorgi Jakhyia (Soukhumi), everything was planned by Russia, which is faced with the question: what to do with Georgia, which, despite everything, continues to move towards the European Union? Moscow, the blogger emphasizes, is trying with all its might to prevent this.
“The Russian Federation activates its political and economic forces just before the announcement of the European Commission’s decision to grant Georgia candidate status for EU membership. Russian occupiers killed a Georgian citizen on territory controlled by official Tbilisi, right next to the church. This was an attempt at destabilization in order to somehow stop Georgia’s movement towards Europe,” says Jakhyia.
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